Method and apparatus for quantifying thermal oxidation tester tube deposits

摘要

A short wavelength light beam such as the blue/green emission lines of an argon-ion laser, is projected through a narrow slit into a chamber onto a metal tube of the kind typically used to receive deposits in fuel testing. The spuriously reflected light is absorbed into the interior chamber wall. The beam spot on the tube is imaged by a short focal length lens onto a photodetector such as a photomultiplier tube. The radiation passing to the detector is filtered to block out all radiation except that having a wave length longer than the incident light. By this means, fluorescence from the deposits on such metal tubes, induced by the incident light beam, is quantified and is used as a proportional indication of the deposit thickness. The metal tube is simultaneously rotated and translated to scan the entire tube and thereby obtain a map of the tube deposits in order to establish a test rating for the fuel.